Viscosity in Solids
The viscous forces that arise during fluid flow must not be confused with the elastic forces that arise in a solid in response shear, compression or extension stresses. While in the latter the stress is proportional to the amount of shear deformation, in a fluid it is proportional to the rate of deformation over time. (For this reason, Maxwell used the term fugitive elasticity for fluid viscosity.)
However, many liquids (including water) will briefly react like elastic solids when subjected to sudden stress. Conversely, many "solids" (even granite) will flow like liquids, albeit very slowly, even under arbitrarily small stress. Such materials are therefore best described as possessing both elasticity (reaction to deformation) and viscosity (reaction to rate of deformation); that is, being viscoelastic.
Indeed, some authors have claimed that amorphous solids, such as glass and many polymers, are actually liquids with a very high viscosity (e.g.~greater than 1012 Pa·s). However, other authors dispute this hypothesis, claiming instead that there is some threshold for the stress, below which most solids will not flow at all, and that alleged instances of glass flow in window panes of old buildings are due to the crude manufacturing process of older eras rather than to the viscosity of glass.
Viscoelastic solids may exhibit both stress viscosity and bulk viscosity. The extensional viscosity is a linear combination of the shear and bulk viscosities that describes the reaction of a solid elastic material to elongation. It is widely used for characterizing polymers.
In geology, earth materials that exhibit viscous deformation at least three times greater than their elastic deformation are sometimes called rheids.
Read more about this topic: Viscosity Of Amorphous Materials